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ETHICAL 

May, 1809 

ADDRESSES 




The New Militarism 

by 
IV m. M. Salter 



PHILADELPHIA: S. BURNS WESTON 
PUBLISHER, No. 1305 ARCH STREET 



ETHICAL ADDRESSES 

SERIES VI. No. 5 MAY, 1899 

Published Monthly (except July, and August) 

By S. BURNS WESTON, 1305 Arch Street, Philadelphia 

(Entered at Philadelphia as second-class matter) 

Yearly, 50 cts. Single Numbers, 5 cts. 



SIXTH SERIES— 1899 

JANUARY.— The First Thing in Life, Wm. M. Salter 
FEBRUARY.— The Spiritual Meaning of Marriage, Felix Adler 
MARCH. — I. A Summary of the More Recent Views Concerning 

the Bible, W. L.Sheldon 
APRIL. — II .A Summary of the More Recent Views Concerning 

the Bible, W. L. Sheldon 

FIFTH SERIES— 1898. 

JANUARY.— The Ethical Culture Society as the Meeting Ground 

of Gentiles and Jews, Felix Adler 
FEBRUARY.— What is of Permanent Value in the Bible (The 

Old Testament) ? Wm. M. Salter 
MARCH.— What is of Permanent Value in the Bible (The New 

Testament)] Wm. M. Salter 
APRIL.— The Punishment of Children, Felix Adler. [Appen- 
dix, The German Ethical Societies, by F. IV. Foerster] 
MAY.— The Punishment of Children (Concluded), Felix Adler 
JUNE.— The Ethics of the War with Spain, S. Burns Weston 
SEPTEMBER.— I. The Plan of an Ethical Sunday School, W. 

L. Sheldon 
OCTOBER.— II. The Plan of an Ethical Sunday School, W. 

L,. Sheldon 
NOVEMBER— A New Nation and a New Duty, Wm. M. Salter 
DECEMBER— The Conservative and Liberal Aspects of Ethical 

Religion, Percival Chubb 

Bound in line cloth, 75 cents. Single numbers, 5 cents. 



EL jH 3 



S. BURNS WESTON, 1305 Arch St., Philadelphia. 



raft. . r 

12 1908 



THE NEW MILITARISM * 

BY WM. M. SALTER. 

It would have been a pleasing task, under ordinary 
circumstances, to pay a tribute to the humanity and good 
sense of the Czar's recent proposals for an international 
conference in the interests of peace and to express satis- 
faction that our country, too, was to take part in the 
deliberations f As things have been till recently, no 
nation might with more appropriateness wish well to 
such an enterprise than we. ' Our deals were not mili- 
tary, and our outlay for warlike purposes was insignifi- 
cant compared with the gigantic sums under which the 
European nations stagger — and yet our people were not 
unpatriotic, and had it been necessary at any time for 
self-defence, millions would have risen to arms. 

But, unfortunately, America is now doing the very 
thing against which the czar made a pathetic protest — 
increasing its armament. True, our utmost limit is far 
short of the dimensions which the armaments of states 
like Russia and Germany already have, but the signifi- 

* Given before the Society for Ethical Culture, of Chicago, Steinway 
Hall, Sunday morning, April 16, 1899. 

f I had announced a lecture on this subject for the Sunday on which this 
address was given. I may add that since my lecture of last autumn, "A 
New Nation and a New Duty," printed in Ethical Addresses, two other 
lectures, "Imperialism" and "England in 1776: America in 1899, " 
have been printed in Unity (Chicago). What in the autumn I scarcely 
believed could happen has happened. Instead of liberating, or promising 
to liberate, the Philippine people, America is now endeavoring to enforce 
its sovereignty over them. 

: . (85) 



86 THE NEW MILITARISM. 

cant thing is the direction in which we are moving, and 
the ideals that are forming themselves in our minds. Nor 
can we say that the increased expense we are contem- 
plating is necessary for self-protection — an excuse which 
would be commonly granted to be good ; the motives 
are of a totally different character. They are of a kind 
to which till recently we have been comparative stran- 
gers ; of a kind that would make us akin to the Euro- 
pean States themselves ; they are motives that look to 
something very like an aggressive career. Old, sick 
nations, with hands drenched in blood, might honestly 
come together and ask if fighting and preparations for 
fighting were worth while ; but for us young, unspoiled, 
just preparing to enter the lists and deliberately setting 
to work to persuade ourselves that it is right and even 
glorious to do so, to go to a conference in the interests of 
a reduction of armaments, seems almost a kind of farce. 
Since becoming painfully aware of the forces that are 
forming themselves in our midst, and particularly since 
reading a notable utterance made only this past week in 
our city, that invested with a sort of halo the new 
ideal,* I have felt that to discuss international peace now 
would be talking in the air. Peace is a great, a beauti- 
ful ideal ; but if there is to be any likelihood of Ameri- 
ca's contributing to its attainment, it can only be as in- 
fluences now arising in our midst are counteracted. We 
are now, under the influence of men of mark, forming 
ideals that will take us right into the circle of the great 
warlike powers of the world. We shall be increasing 
the chances of war rather than diminishing them. I 

* An address by Governor Roosevelt before the Hamilton Club, April 
loth. 



THE NEW MILITARISM. 87 

may do little enough to stem the tide, but I may at least 
help make you conscious of it, I may fortify conscience 
about it — and on the other hand it is possible that this 
old-time, peace-loving democracy will right itself, and 
you or I, friends, by the thoughts and ideals we form in 
our minds, or by the thoughts and ideals we allow to 
vanish from our minds, may help determine the result. 
Thoughts rule the world ; the thoughts of Americans 
will rule America. What does America wish most of 
all and what is she willing to do to get what she wishes ? 
He who knows or can find out that, or can help deter- 
mine it, has the key to American destiny. The truth 
will be now, as always, that 'tis 

' ' Not in our stars, 
But in ourselves that we are underlings." 

So far as I can make out, two sets of forces are urg- 
ing us in the new direction — forces of so-called religion 
and the forces of trade. I have reverence for real reli- 
gion, and so I say " so-called religion"; I really mean 
religious people rather than religion — and, to be exact, I 
should say certain religious people, though, since the 
other religious people so largely keep silent,* the fail- 
ure to qualify may be pardoned. The " religious " aim 
is to do good, to Christianize, to spread civilization. The 
thing forgotten is that we have to do right before we 
can do good. The early Christian church remembered 
this ; the church to-day is in danger of forgetting it. 
The first Christians following close after their master 

* There are notable exceptions, like Bishop Potter of New York, Bishop 
Coleman of Delaware, and Bishop Spalding of Peoria — not to mention a 
number of the Massachusetts clergy, and a few elsewhere, like the Rev. 
Dr. H. W. Thomas and the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones of Chicago. 



88 THE NEW MILITARISM. 

ever refused to bear the sword; "I am a Christian and 
cannot fight," they said. Now the church sometimes 
eggs on those who bear the sword, and one would not 
be surprised, to judge from the tone of the language we 
hear, to see missionaries and religious editors emulating 
the example of those bishops and abbots of a later de- 
generate Christianity, who led armies and fought in bat- 
tle. One of the most prominent clergymen in Philadel- 
phia* says in reference to the Philippines " The only 
thing we can do is to thrash the natives until they 
understand who we are. I believe every bullet sent, 
every cannon shot, every flag waved, means righteous- 
ness." An editor of a religious weekly,f meeting the ob- 
jection that getting control of the islands is too expens- 
ive since it will cost too much blood and treasure, says, 
"yes, if it is territory, empire, or earthly glory we are after. 
But, if we are seeking the salvation of the souls of the 
Filipinos, the prospective gain justifies the cost. ' What 
shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?' " (Of course, 
I may add, this leaves out of account the poor islanders 
who bite the dust before we have a chance at their souls 
— but no matter.) It will be said, these are extreme 
statements. No doubt they are ; and yet their signi- 
ficance is in boldly saying what is running in many 
minds in a more or less confused and inarticulate way. 
They do not love war and yet they think it has its uses 
when it opens up a new field in which to make conver- 
sions and they try not to be squeamish. Differing from 
the pious Fenelon who refused a military escort when 
starting off on a missionary expedition, saying that he 

* Rev. Dr. Wayland Hoyt. 
f The United Presbyterian. 



THE NEW MILITARISM. 89 

would rather perish by the hands of those whom he 
wished to convert than expose them to the violence of 
the military, they think the military must preceede the 
the gospel. First force, first let the poor heathen know 
" who's who," then reason and love and the beauties of 
the gospel of peace. The ebullition of war sentiment, in 
contrast with the old-time faith in other methods re- 
minds one of Hosea Biglow in Lowell's lines: 

" We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, 
With good old idees o' vvot's right an' wot aint ; 
We kind 0' thought Christ went agin war an pillage, 
An' that eppyletts warn't the best mark of a saint ; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee." 

And yet the standpoint is not quite new, for it takes us 
back to something as old as the Inquisition, as old as 
the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, and all the other 
massacres, too numerous to mention, in which men were 
killed or tortured that other men's souls might be saved. 
There was probably never love of killing ; only men 
made up their minds not to be squeamish over a little 
killing when souls were at stake. 

And yet these forces of so-called religion are prob- 
ably slight in influence, compared with the forces of 
trade, in determining the rising militarism. It is not love 
of souls but love of dollars that is the chief cause, though 
sometimes the love of souls plays into the hands of the 
love of dollars in an astonishing way. For example, a 
missionary in China, in the current number of one of our 
leading magazines, calls attention to the opportunities that 
China is now offering for vast speculations and strong 



90 THE NEW MILITARISM. 

syndicates. " This is the period of concessions," he says, 
" of organizing for opening up the resources " of that 
great empire.* Trade, however, and those who take its 
standpoint, had scented the new opportunities independ- 
ently of the clerical suggestion. A judge on the United 
States bench who resides in our city pointed out last sum- 
mer the chances for America in the far East.f " It is a 
land," he said, " without railroads, without manufactories, 
without cities built on modern lines, without fields culti- 
vated by modern implements." More than this, he urged, 
we have come to a point where we need takers of our 
manufactures — we must have new markets, and neither 
South America nor Europe will compare with China. 
Hence he had favored acquiring Hawaii, hence he ad- 
vocated retaining the Philippines, not that he cared for 
those links individually, but that he cared everything for 
the chain that would thereby be made, holding us to the 
opportunities in China. And government, in his opin- 
ion, should foster the new commercial ventures, and the 
flag of the United States and its warships should be seen 
and respected in Asiatic waters. " I am not unaware," 
said the eminent judge, "that what I have said has the 
ring chiefly of commercial conquest " — but he urged 
that other and higher forms of civilization would natur- 
ally follow on after, when once the foundations of com- 
merce had been laid. What the judge thus urged in a 
temperate and dignified manner others put more simply. 
" The European market is becoming played out," says 
a representative American journalist,! " and it is to Asia 

* Forum, March, '99, p. 236. 

| Judge Grosscup, in an address at Saratoga, given in full in the Chicago 
Tribune, 23 August, '99. % Mural Halstead, quoted in Chicago Record. 



THE NEW MILITARISM. 9 1 

we will have to look." "A magnificent foothold for the 
trade of the far East," says another journalist (referring 
to the Philippines) who was also a Peace Commissioner.* 
"America must have that market," declares America's 
leading railway man,f " in order to avoid the danger 
arising from an internal congestion caused by over- 
production due to the fever-heat construction of rail- 
roads." "We are after markets, the greatest markets 
now existing in the world," says an ex-Minister to 
China,| who is one of the President's Commission in the 
Philippines, who are to make recommendations as to 
what we shall do with those islands. Indeed this gentle- 
man had generously given his opinion on this question 
in advance — for in the February number of one of our 
reviews § he said, " By holding them we gain eight mil- 
lions of people who are ripe for the opening and exten- 
sion of a magnificent commerce" (so that the "link" 
itself would appear to have some richness about it); and 
he contemplates the question of our holding the islands 
entirely from this commercial point of view — if they 
will not benefit us, he says, " set them free to-morrow, 
and let their people, if they please, cut each other's 
throats or play what pranks they please." But by 
holding them, he urges, we not only gain eight million 
possible customers there, but "we become an Asiatic 
power, and we shall have something to say about the 
dismemberment of China." Another man prominent in 
American public life takes a similarly unsentimental 

* Whitelaw Reid, at Marquette Club, Chicago, Feb. 13, 1899. 
f Chauncey M. Depew, in interview reported in Chicago Record, 
Feb. 25, 1899. 

J Mr. Denby, in the Forum, November, '98, p. 281. 
\ The Forum, p. 648. 



92 THE NEW MILITARISM. 

view.* The far-reaching question, he says, "is not sen- 
timental, but commercial. . . . The world's fight in the 
nineteenth century was liberty. The coming century it 
will be markets." And one of the leading newspapers 
in the country f says : " The Philippine Islands is our 
stepping-stone to China. . . . We must demand our 
share, if any further division is made of the Chinese 
Empire." Indeed it was announced a month ago from 
Pekin that there were indications that America was 
likely to prefer the province of Chi-Li.| 

Such seem to be the main forces back of the new 
military spirit. It used to be said that industry and 
commerce were peaceful agencies. And in settled con- 
ditions they are. One of the leaders in the peace move- 
ment in this country says that the war between the 
United States and Great Britain over the Venezuela 
boundary question was prevented by the commercial 
men of New York and the commercial men of London. 
Yet circumstances alter cases, and that there were those 
who took a different point of view at that very time is 
indicated in a remark made by a Southern gentleman 
interested in the growth of manufactures there, who 
said, " We need a war to open to the world our com- 
merce. We must find ways out."§ When conditions are 
unsettled, when for instance here in America we are pro- 
ducing, I will not say more than is needed at home, but 
more than can be sold ; when even such foreign markets 
as we have are not sufficient to take our products, then 

* Henry Watterson, in letter to Louisville Courier-Journal, quoted in 
Chicago Record, Feb. I, 1899. 

t Boston Herald, 15 December, '98. 

I Chicago Chronicle, 6 March, '98. 

I Quoted in Christian Register, Oct. 6, 1898. 



THE NEW MILITARISM. 93 

new markets can not only be sought, they can be fought 
for as truly as anything else was ever fought for in the 
past, and the very commercial spirit may goad us on to 
war. From what I am able to observe, I should say 
that this was the main influence now urging us on and 
keeping us at our otherwise distasteful task of subju- 
gating the Philippines ; though those who want to con- 
vert the islanders and those who want in general to 
spread civilization there are also playing their part. We 
are but simply falling into line so far with Great Britain 
and Germany and France, all of whom produce more 
than they can sell at home, and all of whom think, 
whether mistakenly or not, that they can best get rid of 
their surplus products by owning colonies. One for 
whom all of us who love tales of adventure and songs 
of manly bravery have a tender feeling, has ventured to 
idealize all this by calling it taking up the white man's 
burden. But the men who are actually doing the busi- 
ness in South Africa or in Egypt or in India don't care 
to be covered with soft-sawder. They know what they 
are there for. As Mr. Edward Dicey says, " We don't 
go to Egypt to civilize it ; we go to get new markets." 
Another Englishman, while praising the Indian civil ser- 
vants and owning that they are probably higher than the 
average in conscientiousness, says,* however, that " to 
affirm that they are impelled to spend twenty years in 
governing India, from the philanthropic desire to " take 
up the white man's burden," or that such desire is any 
considerable part of the inducement to service, would be 
too grotesque a piece of bunkum even for the plat- 
form of a Primrose League meeting. The Saturday 

* J. A. Ilobson, in Ethical World, Feb. 18, 1899, p. 194. 



94 THE NEW MILITARISM. 

Rcvieiv remarks, " The plain unvarnished truth is that 
the Empire was built up as the result of the pursuit of 
gain."* Indeed, in some instances England has pur- 
sued methods (or allowed methods to be pursued) that 
Mr. John Morley describes in this fashion (he is speak- 
ing of Chitral : 

' ' First, you push on into territories where you have no busi- 
ness to be, and where you had promised not to go ; secondly, 
your intrusion provokes resentment, and, in these wild countries, 
resentment means resistance ; thirdly, you instantly cry out that 
the people are rebellious and that their act is rebellion (this in 
spite of your own assurance that you have no intention of setting 
up a permanent sovereignty over them) ; fourthly, you send a 
force to stamp out the rebellion ; and, fifthly, having spread 
bloodshed, confusion and anarchy, you declare, with hands up- 
lifted to the heavens, that moral reasons force you to stay, for 
if you were to leave, this territory would be left in a condition 
which no civilized Power could contemplate with equanimity or 
composure. These are the five stages in the Forward Rake's 
progress." 

It is well not to deceive ourselves. In joining the 
list of the great colonial powers there is no need to set 
up a claim of peculiar magnanimity and disinterested- 
ness. No doubt, after we have got possession of our 
new territories (if they are really to be such), there will 
be gentle men and gentle women who will spread many 
good influences among them, just as white-winged " em- 
issaries of civilization" have in time followed the trader 
and the chartered company wherever the English occu- 
pation has gone. But the dominant motive that is de- 
termining the country at the present time is the com- 
mercial one — it is the new markets, the chances for 
investment, the possible concessions and franchises that 

* 17th September, 1S9S. 



THE NEW MILITARISM. 95 

are luring us on ; it is the Eldorado that we think we 
descry across the seas that makes us so resolutely 
clutch and seek to hold the bit of standing ground that 
the fortunes of war have thrown into our hands. 

This commercial spirit is but thinly veiled in the stir- 
ring address given in Chicago this past week, to which 
I have already alluded. It was a brave man who gave 
it — brave on the field and brave at home ; an honest 
man too, a man who speaks as he thinks. But the 
ideals he held up scarcely go beyond holding our own 
in the great struggle now going on for naval and com- 
mercial supremacy in the world ; and what does go 
beyond this is simply honor in accepting what seems to 
him our duty of enforcing on "new-got peoples" this 
same military and commercial rule. There was much 
about " the strenuous life," about not shrinking from 
danger, from hardships or from bitter toil — but it was 
all to these ends. The army and the navy were to him 
" the sword and shield which the nation must carry if 
she is to do her duty among the nations of the earth " — 
an army and navy, then, not for defense merely, but as a 
means of grasping those " points of vantage which will 
enable us to have our say in deciding the destiny of the 
oceans of the east and the west," i.e., of doing just what 
we are now doing in the Philippines. If we follow the 
appeal contained in this address, there is no telling 
where the nation will bring up. Revolutionary France 
first sent out her armies in self-defense and in the inter- 
ests of liberty. But we are to start out on our new career 
disdaining liberty. Our youthful leader professes scant 
patience with those who cant about " liberty " and the 
"consent of the governed" in order to "excuse them- 



96 THE NEW MILITARISM. 

selves for their unwillingness to play the part of men." 
I repeat, I know not where under such leadership we 
shall go. We may do all that England has ever done. 
We may even repeat Chitral, which John Morley has 
characterized. There are absolutely no warnings given 
us by the colonel of the Rough Riders — our new " gen- 
tleman on horseback." Warnings against bad govern- 
ment, yes — but no warnings against governing where 
we have no business to govern. In the Philippines we 
have a show of right ; but since it is not right accord- 
ing to ancient American principles, why may we not go 
sometime where we have no right at all ? The down- 
ward grade once started on it is easy to take. 

Would it not be well to hesitate and consider before 
embarking on this new career ? 

" Old things need not be therefore true, 
O brother man, nor yet the new ; 
Ah ! still a while the old thought retain 
And yet consider it again." 

Do we realize what militarism means ? First, let me sav 
this new militarism is for the benefit of a class, not for all. 
An army of defense is for the whole country ; an army 
or a navy to be used across the seas is for those who 
venture across the seas — and particularly for speculators 
and franchise-takers and plunderers of all sorts. 

I have been struck with the fact that in many cases the 
European states are no stronger for their colonial pos- 
sessions. Mr. Bryce says : " Madagascar and her Afri- 
can colonies cost France far more than their trade is 
worth. The same is true of the African colonies of Ger- 
many."* Why do these countries keep such colonies? 

* Chicago Record, 15 April, 1S99. 



THE NEW MILITARISM. 97 

The answer is, I suppose, that Frenchmen and Germans 
make money out of them even if France and Germany 
do not, and that these countries submit to be taxed for 
the benefit of the favored individuals. The second 
point, accordingly, is that though latter-day militarism 
is for the benefit of a class, the whole country has to 
pay the bills. If we decide to keep the Philippines, they 
will not be likely to be worth anything to the nation 
for a long while to come, according to good authorities ; 
but they will be worth something to those who get rail- 
road and other franchises or who build factories and hire 
cheap Filipino labor, and we shall all, including every 
workman who has a cent he can spare, be taxed to keep 
up the government under which the favored few make 
their money. What taxes may be resorted to we do 
not know. An army of 100,000 men (which, as things 
are going, seems a modest requirement) will cost, it is 
estimated,* something like $100,000,000 a year, or 
about $76,000,000 more than our army cost before the 
Spanish war. Pensions, too, will come in. Already 
some $20,000,000, it is said, have been added by the 
Spanish war to the pension account. The English gov- 
ernment is almost at its wit's ends to devise ways and 
means for its army and navy budget ; for " you can't 
keep up a splendid empire for nothing," says Mr. Bal- 
four. The London Times even suggests the corn duties 
again. The Spectator suggests economizing on schools. 
And Great Britain has an income tax ! What may we 
be obliged to do for whom an income tax is set down 
as iniquitous and unconstitutional ? 

But all this is a small part of the meaning of militar- 

*So Carl Schurz, in Boston Transcript, 8 April, 1899. 



9^ THE NEW MILITARISM. 

ism. The shocking thing is that large standing armies 
are apt to grow restless and to want to fight. In 1875 
Alexander II wrote an autograph letter to Bismarck, 
saying that the Russian army was restless after twenty 
years of peace, and asking if Germany would stand 
aloof if Russia attacked Austria.* But last spring our 
soldiers out at Fort Sheridan were reported eager for a 
fight, and one said if he could put a bullet through a 
couple of Spaniards he should be ready to die. If kill- 
ing is the business of certain men, how can killing any 
longer be a horrible thing in their eyes ? 

Then what passions war is apt to unloose ! Men be- 
come beside themselves — our own men, Americans, as 
truly as any other. An officer of Admiral Dewey's 
fleet says in a letter printed in the New York Tribune, 
" Every day I hear opinions to the effect that these peo- 
ple ought to be wiped off the face of the earth, and 
have no right to live." A dispatch stated that when the 
first load of wounded soldiers at the battle on March 
25th started for Manila they shouted back to their com- 
rades going to the front, " Give 'em hell, boys ! " A 
Chicago boy writes to his father from Manila, " I am still 
above the old sod and trying to make the Filipinos 
good men. The only way to do this is to bury them."f 
A member of the Third Artillery writes, " We bombarded 
a place called Malabon and then we went and killed 
every native we met, men, women and children. It was 
a dreadful sight, the killing of the poor creatures. The 
natives captured some of the Americans, and literally 

*So Die Neue Frei Presse, Vienna, in an article recognized as inspired 
by Bismarck, and referred to in the New York Times, 8 November, '96. 
f Chicago Record, April 14, 1895. 



THE NEW MILITARISM. 99 

hacked them to pieces, so we got orders to spare no 
one."* Another says, " To shoot a man at six feet range 
with a Springfield rifle is a hard thing to do, but the 
orders were to let no insurgent live, and off would go 
the whole side of his head, or he would fall with a wound 
through the abdomen large enough to drop a potato 
through, "f An officer of the Red Cross testifies to 
passing among the heaps of native dead where were to 
be seen " total decapitations," " horrible wounds in chest 
and abdomen," showing the determination of our soldiers 
to kill everything in sight. "J Such is war, not as we read 
about it in the story books or in poetry, but as it is in 
ghastly fact ; such is what human beings will do, even our 
own kith and kin, when exasperation goads them on. Do 

* Anthony Michea to his father, Captain George Michea of St. Cathar- 
ines, Ont., printed in Springfield (weekly) Republican, April 14, 1899. 

f The authority for this is a Manila correspondent of the New York 
Sun ; I found the passage in the Springfield Republican just quoted. 

% Mr. Blake of California, quoted in Springfield Republican of same 
date, " The Rev. Chas. F. Dole of Jamaica Plain, Mass, writes to the 
Boston Transcript (of April 15) of a letter he has had from the father of 
one of our soldiers at Manila, who wrote to his father as follows : 'The 
longer I stay here and the more I see and think of the matter, the more 
fully convinced I am that the American nation was and is making a blun- 
der. I do not believe the United States is equal to the task of conquering 

this people, or even governing them afterwards I don' t think I 

would miss the truth much if I said more non-combatants have been killed 
than actual native soldiers. I don't believe the people in the United 
States understand the question or the condition of things here or the in- 
human warfare now being carried on. Talk about Spanish cruelty ! They 
are not in it with the Yank. Even the Spanish are shocked. Of course, 
I don't expect to have war without death and destruction, but I do expect 
that when an enemy gets down on his knees and begs for his life that he 
won't be shot in cold blood. But it is a fact that the order was not to 
take any prisoner, and I have seen enough to almost make me ashamed to 
call myself an American.' " 



100 THE NEW MILITARISM. 

we want more of it or do we want less ? Well, I can assure 
you that if we fall in with the new militarism we shall 
have more of it, whether we want it or not. We shall 
go on having more of it from year to year, or at least 
from decade to decade ; we shall be doing our part, 
along with Englishmen and Germans and Frenchmen, 
to rid the earth of its brown men and black men — and 
then we shall not have gained much, for where they 
live the white man can only live with difficulty. And as 
for the respect for property which war cultivates, the fol- 
lowing from a letter by a soldier of the Washington 
Volunteers will suffice — it may seem very tame after the 
things just recited, but it will let us down gently : 
" We burned hundreds of houses and looted hundreds 
more. Some of the boys made good hauls of jewelry 
and clothing. Nearly every man has at least two suits 
of clothing and our quarters are furnished in style ; fine 
beds, with silken drapery, mirrors, chairs, rockers, cush- 
ions, pianos, hanging-lamps, rugs, pictures, etc. We 
have horses and carriages and bull carts galore, and 
enough furniture and other plunder to load a steamer." 
This, by the way, throws an interesting light on the 
common idea that they are mere savages we are sub- 
jugating in the Philippines.* 

* The writer is E. D. Furman, in a letter to the Spokane Spokesman- 
Review, and the passage is quoted in the Springfield (weekly) Republi- 
can of 14 April, 1899. In this paper (of the same date), is also found a 
quotation from a letter of Captain Albert Otis, written from Manila to a 
Brunswick, Me., local paper; "I have six horses and three carriages in 
my yard and enough small plunder for a family of six. The house I had 
at Santa Ana had five pianos. I couldn't take them, so I put a big grand 
piano out of a second-story window. You can guess its finish. Every- 
thing is pretty quiet about here now. I expect we will not be kept here 
very long. Give my love to all." 



THE NEW MILITARISM. IOI 

But after all the pitifullest thing about the ascendancy 
of the new militarism will be the spiritual decay of the 
American people. There may be no decay for any of 
the European States in doing what they are doing, for 
they have nothing to fall from. Fortunately or unfor- 
tunately, America has had an ideal. You may say it is 
not in the "Constitution." I grant it. It belongs to 
the American spirit all the same. You may say we 
have sinned against it, and this too is true ; but we have 
generally owned that we sinned against it, and we have 
been more or less clearly conscious of the shame. We 
have had a palliation, too, if not an excuse; for negro and 
Indian have been on our own soil, and with the Indian 
at least we have been in competition. None the less we 
have kept the ideal ; it was to live and to let live ; to be 
free and let other peoples be free ; to abhor conquest 
and force save against those who in some sense belonged 
to us, or whom we expected to make a part of us. But 
now we are not willing even to let a far-distant people 
be free ; we never should dream of incorporating them 
in our body politic, yet we want to rule them — rule 
them with an eye to the China trade and with a view to 
whatever possibilities of richness there may be in their 
own domain. Whatever idealism there was in going 
into the Spanish war is already spoiled — forever spoiled. 
Then our voice was all for liberty. Where is the inno- 
cent who calls on liberty now ? Some of us are begin- 
ning to feel almost as if we had been tricked in the first 
place, though I cannot yet believe it. 

One of the most lamentable falls has been that of 
one of our great religious weeklies. From declaring, in 
December last, that Spain had no real title to the Philip- 



102 THE NEW MILITARISM. 

pines and hence could not transfer one to the United 
States, the paper has now come to maintain that sov- 
ereignty there is ours to have and to keep — all in 
four short months !* The blurring of the percep- 
tions of the mind, the sophistication of the soul, is the 
tragedy of tragedies. If the light that is within a 
man becomes darkness, how great is that darkness ! 

Such is something of the meaning and consequences 
of the new militarism. Can any one who realizes this 
give it any welcome ? Looking at it even from a mate- 
rial point of view, what are we likely to permanently 
gain ? The problem is to get rid of our surplus pro- 
ducts which, though our home people may need, they 
are in no condition to buy. But according to New York 
merchants doing an export business, the Cuban markets 
are already glutted with American commodities, for 
which no demand can be found, this being particularly 
true of breadstuffs and provisions.! There appear to 
be plenty of hungry mouths there, but they cannot buy. 
Why may not the Philippines and China herself be in 
this condition sometime ? And when China herself 
begins to work with labor-saving machines, what then ? 
With her cheap labor, why may she not undersell us in 
our own markets here at home as well as abroad ? Yet 
when there are no new markets for either her or us, 
what shall she or we do when there comes to be a glut ? 
• But that day will surely come, as sure as the world is 
one. Who does not see that the problem is to so order 
production that people shall have something to buy 
with ? Yes, who does not see that that is really the 

*The Outlook, editorials of December 17, 1898, and April 15, 1899. 
f See Springfield (weekly) Republican, of April 7. 



THE NEW MILITARISM. 103 

problem now ? Our home markets might be multiplied 
ten, twenty and perhaps a hundred fold, if someone 
only knew how to give the people, all the people, some- 
thing to do. This is the riddle the Sphinx proposes to 
society, and if society does not solve it, it is only hur- 
rying on to a catastrophe, the like of which has never 
been dreamed. 

What shall we do with the rising military spirit ? 
Nip it in the bud, and go and study the social problem. 
Say now and let the people say, " We have pursued a 
mistaken course, O brothers across the sea, and we own 
it. We cease hostilities, and we ask you to cease. We 
will withdraw our soldiers, save a police force to pro- 
tect life and property and to guard you against other 
aggression. Come, let us confer together, let us rea- 
son together. We declare that we claim not a thing 
that is yours. And yet, barring this late madness into 
which we were betrayed by either thoughtless or 
wicked men, we believe that we are a little further 
along the pathway of progress than you, and if you 
would like, we will still stretch out the friendly hand. 
We will act toward you, and we promise that we will 
act toward you, as we have promised to act toward 
Cuba." 

This may sound cowardly, but it is the bravest thing 
this people can do. It sounds very well to talk of "the 
strenuous life," but to strenuously put down a people 
that is struggling to be free is not noble, nor, consider- 
ing who they are, and who we are, is it even brave. If 
we want to be really brave, let us take a foeman who is 
a match for us ! There was little enough glory in whip- 
ping poor, decrepit Spain — but there is almost as much 



104 THE NEW MILITARISM. 

glory in chasing poor Lo across the plains as in routing 
the Filipinos. 

There are those in these days who think to serve the 
state by riding rough-shod over the rights of man. 
There are others who think the only function of the 
state is in securing the rights of man. For the latter 
class, too, is a strenuous life ; for them is vigilance ; for 
them is a heart of steel to fight down the proud ; for 
them is battle and conflict, and an end of slothful ease 
and of ignoble peace ; but it is right and not might for 
for which they strive, it is love between men and not 
armed egoism that is the bright vision luring them on, 
and when they know what right is and what love de- 
mands, they will stand for it against the world. 



xCAL, Addresses 

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THE PARTING OF THE WAYS IN THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THt. 
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A MORAL FROM ATHENIAN HISTORY. Bernard Bosanquet, London 

BELLIGERENT DISCUSSION AND TRUTH-SEEKING. Richard C. Cabot, 
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"THE MERCHANT OF VENICE" AS AN EXPONENT OF INDUSTRIAL 
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